There were many cultural differences I noticed reading the autobiographies of the students from Qingdao. One that really caught my eye, though, was one pointed out by Ivy (Liu Jilin). She asked me if America had the conception that Chinese women seek men who don't have parents.
I personally have never heard of this stereotype, but it made sense to me once Ivy explained to me that relationships in a Chinese family are very sensitive. She said that a man must treat his parents and siblings with priority over his own wife. She shared an old saying with me: "Brothers are as indispensable as handsome and fit, but the wife is like a coat."
I think this is interesting because in America, it is common that a husband and wife relationship will be more important to the couple than the parent realtionships. I was wondering how society would view a man who did not fulfill his obligations to his parents. I think it's different how he is supposed to take care of his parents until they die. I would think it'd be difficult to balance all of this in life.
A man in China has a lot of responsibility to his parents, and I think it is interesting how this tradition has worked out with the one-child law. According to CNN:
"A long history of son preference, particularly among the Han majority, has led to female infanticide and the neglect of daughters in some parts of China. But in recent decades, the spread of cheap ultrasound (enabling sex-determination in early-mid pregnancy) and easy access to abortion courtesy of the government's one-child policy, has led to the widespread abortion of female fetuses."
Now there are too many men in China. With the one-child rule, they were trying to control the growing population. With too many men, though, there will not be enough women for all the men. This could potentially create a different kind of population problem.
I did my service learning project on teen depression. It is a cause that I care a lot about, and have witnessed its effects on both my peers and myself. My idea was to create an awareness website to help people recognize how severe of a problem it really is, know the signs, and know where to go. My long-term plan was to provide a place to go. I wanted to create a place for students at Parkview to go to seek help. I know personally that it is hard to ask for help when you're having trouble, so I wanted to create a community that one could feel comfortable with seeking help in.
Unfortunately we did not have enough time to carry out our projects, but I will definitely carry this idea with me into the future. As of right now my plan is to get a degree in psychology, so this will still be very relevant for the career I will pursue.
I cannot believe how nice these kids are! It amazed me how sincere the letters were, despite the fact that they were school assignments. I'm a little bit overwhelmed at the amount of letters I received. I want to respond to all of them, but it looks like some might have to wait a little bit. It amazed me how different their schooling system is; most of them study from 6am to 10pm. Some days I'm not even awake for that many hours. All of them mentioned that they are kind of lonely. It surprised me because college in America is very social.
In my autobiography I mentioned that I play soccer. I got a lot of responses saying that in China soccer is a boy's sport. Most of the girls that responded played volleyball at one point. Also, a lot of them play badminton and table tennis.
I was surprised at how many of the students had siblings. Some of them had three siblings even. Only one of them mentioned having a pet. That's weird to be because pets are such a big part of our lives here. At least mine is.
I think that I will keep in touch with some of the students. I'm excited to learn more about their culture and daily lives.
Sorry Ms. James I don't have a cute animal video for this post!
At the beginning of this project I was kind of at a loss of what to do. I already planned on going to Africa to volunteer in the summer, but it's not like I can just go there this weekend to do this paper. I focused on the career I plan on going into: psychology. I just thought about doing research on the profession, and interviewing experienced psychologists. That was actually my plan until last night.
When we were thinking about what are some pressing issues in the world, I thought about depression, specifically teen depression. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. This is us, and these are our friends and classmates. It's a serious issue. Depression affects about 5% of all teens, making it one of the most common illnesses for teenagers.
I did some research on individual stories. I found that a lot of these teens that committed suicide, their friends and family didn't even know that anything was wrong. I know firsthand that it's sometimes difficult to recognize the signs of depression because these kids will put on a smile for the rest of the world, even though they're hurting inside. These kids also tried to get help in subtle ways like a post on Facebook, but didn't seem to get any one's attention. I think it's important to raise awareness about this.
I'm still at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I'm thinking of starting something to raise awareness about the signs of depression, but I'm also thinking of starting some sort of safe place for teens with depression to communicate with each other, so they know they're not alone. I'm going to do some more research to see what sort of thing I can set up. If you guys have any suggestions I would love to hear them!
I'll start out with being honest and say that I did not watch the entire episode of sixty minutes. I skimmed over the script. The part about the chess prodigy, Mangus Carlsen interested me most. I found his segment in the episode, and I watched it. The segment started out with this 23 year old man playing chess with ten people at a time. Not only that, but he is doing it with his back turned to the boards. He would say his move aloud and his opponent would move his piece for him. Then his opponent would say his/her move aloud, and Carlsen would move on to the next opponent. He was keeping track of not only his pieces, but his opponents' pieces, totaling three hundred and twenty pieces... all in his mind. He won every single one of those matches. When asked about this incredible performance (referring to his ability to memorize the position of 320 chess pieces at a time), he just responded like it was no big deal. "It's one of the amazing things in chess that you can-- you don't really need the board. You can just keep it--" he said pointing to his head. I watched "60 Minutes Overtime: A Chess Prodigy Explains How His Mind Works" where I got to see a little more of the interview. Carlsen said that sometimes he would have to replay the entire chess match in his mind to remember where all the pieces were. His interviewer asked him about how long this took him and he responded with, "Oh, about half a minute." This kid is incredible to me. Besides the fact that he was a child prodigy, nearly beating the world champion at the age of thirteen. I'm impressed with his impeccable memory. He remembers all of his past matches, and also matches that chess masters have played in the past, totaling over ten thousand matches sitting in his mind. The 60 Minute interviewer gave him a little quiz. He set up a chess board from one of Carlsen's past matches. He looked at the board and chuckled, naming where the match took place, his opponent, and what year it was, and that he was thirteen when it happened. Although Carlsen's great memory seems to be some sort of natural gift, there are some ways that a great memory can be developed. Throughout the segment, I kept remembering an episode of Ted Talks about memory. It's called Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do. It's about twenty minutes, but it's worth the watch. Here's a link to it ----> LINK! and it's also on Netflix under Ted Talks: Life Hacks. Basically, it breaks down memory into a science, and then turns it into a learned skill. It's very interesting, and it's already helped me with studying and remembering things that I really need to remember, but haven't been. You should definitely check it out. Here's a video of a Slow Loris eating a rice ball!
It's been over a year since I've blogged, so we're gonna see how this goes. I made a deal with Ms. James that I could write about the independent reading I'm doing under the condition that I still answer TOMS founder, Blake Mycoskie's questions about passion. Here we go. 1. If you did not have to worry about money, what would you do with your time? I feel like the answer he's looking for with this question is something along the lines of "end world poverty." If I'm being completely honest, though, I would spend most of my time on Netflix. But if I'm thinking of a bigger, less lazy way to spend my time, I would want to do something to help others... maybe find ways (like random acts of kindness) to make people happy. People need more joy in their lives. 2. What kind of work would you want to do? I'd want to do the same type of work that I already plan on doing, psychology. I want to be a counselor, and help people find contentment in their lives. If someone needs an ear I want to be there for them. I've learned from experience that lack of opening up to people can take a serious toll on the spirit, so I want to help however I can. 3. What cause would you serve? I have a life philosophy: Learn to love yourself, and then go help others do the same. I'm sure this philosophy will change over time as I mature, but right now that's what I care about. It breaks my heart when I see people down, especially when it's a frequent thing. A healthy dose of confidence and acceptance will do wonders for someone! Also, and this will sound so immature, I think everyone should just be nice to each other. That's it. Now! What you've all been waiting for... Erica's Independent Reading When I'm at the library I always find myself in the Psychology section. This time I picked up a book entitled Out of Body Experiences: How to Have Them and What to Expect by Robert Peterson. Intrigued, I picked it up, found a chair, and started reading. About half an hour later it was time for me to go home, so I went ahead and checked it out (only after paying my stupid late fines, though). "Out of body experience" is pretty much self-explanatory, but if you haven't heard of it, it's basically your conscious "spirit" (assuming you have one) exiting your physical body, without dying of course. It's sometimes called astral projection. If you've seen Insidious, this is what the little boy does when he goes to bed, and then he gets trapped by that creepy red thing with the weird song and everything... yeah, you get the point. I'm not sure I believe the author on this whole "astral projection" thing. He describes some pretty weird stuff in the book. But then again, the whole concept is pretty bizarre. Here's an excerpt:
"Somehow I could see through my closed eyelids. I looked up and saw a blue ring of electrical fire flying right toward my head. It was about a foot in diameter, with the energy sparks about an inch-and-a-half thick, and it was bright blue. I instinctively tried to raise my arms to protect myself from the impact, but I found myself paralyzed and unable to move my arms. The ring of blue energy started to slip over my forehead and I looked away, afraid to see what would happen next. I started fighting wildly to regain control of my body and the "vibrations" slowly smoothed down and died out. When the vibrations faded completely, I could move my body again."
Weird, right? The first four chapters I thought he was just talking about lucid dreaming (when you know you're dreaming and can sometimes control the dreams) because the two are very similar, but apparently it's a whole different thing. Peterson said I'll learn more about that in chapters 12 and 26. I'll be sure and keep you posted.
I read a short story once by my favorite author Neal Shusterman. It's actually my second favorite ghost story because of the way the kid died. (I'm just now realizing how awful that sounds.) Anyway, the kid was having one of these out of body experiences. He was flying around, looking down at his physical body when a jumbo jet crashes and takes the top floor of his house off. It kills his physical body, but his "astra body" is still alive. Now he's free to do whatever he wants, not bound by earthly things like gravity. He's technically dead, but his spirit is not. Having read this, it makes me wonder (assuming you can have out of body experiences) if this is possible. If so, would an experienced astral projector be able to escape their body right as they're about to die? It's kind of cool to think about.
I am very skeptical about this Peterson guy. Some of the stuff he says is just too weird. He does have tips on how to have an out of body experience, though. I think I am going to try it. He says it took him several months to master it, and honestly I probably won't stick with it that long. I will try it and see if I can get that blue ring of fire above my head.
I think I might actually finish this book, so you should see another blog post with more information on it soon. Thanks for reading, have a good life!
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Psst! Here's a video of a hedgehog and kitten meeting for the first time!
There are a lot of things that inspire me. I believe you can find inspiration from literally everything in life. My favorite author once challenged himself to write about the first thing he saw on a road trip; it was a dumpster, and the story turned out to be really good. A lot of times I am inspired by music, life experiences, pictures, TV, and news articles. But consistently I find myself walking out the front door when I have a bad case of writer's block. Nature is my favorite source of inspiration.
I think humans naturally have a connection with nature. It can be calming (like waves on a beach), scary (a bad storm), and exciting (maybe a twelve-inch fresh blanket of snow?). You can use nature to generate emotion in your writing, which is something every type of artist needs: emotion.
My favorite kind of nature is out in the middle of nowhere. I like to be able to get away from the chaos of normal life, go out into the country, and just take a walk by the lake or in the woods. It's calming and it's very enjoyable. It is also a great place to write. There are no distractions, and if you get writer's block it's no problem: just get up and go find something beautiful to look at. So for anyone reading this, I stongly encourage you to try writing in nature; I promise it is great, just don't go out in a bad storm. Now here's some things to make this blog post longer:
A quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson about man's special connection with nature: "The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged."
This is a picture of a place I visited once in Farmington, Missouri. I would love to go there again one day and spend a few hours roaming around and taking pictures. It's a really cool place.
This is a picture of the lake where I write most. It's Stockton Lake.
One more picture of Oklahoma. I took this picture on a road trip. I think it's really beautiful out there.
